Interview By: Leza Raley-Labrador & Ellen Alveraz

Written By: Leza Raley-Labrador

I believe the best education in life is travel and life experiences.  Most see the world from inside of a fishbowl, getting a glimpse of the joy and tragedy around the world from the evening news, or from the internet within the safety of their home.  Then there are those who explore the world, taking advantage of great pleasures and being witness to life’s great disasters.   A world of love, laughter and miracles awaits those who dare to discover the world’s vast treasures.  Humanitarians are made when a person realizes that there is beauty within life’s misfortunes and when that person makes a conscious decision to stand up to the wrongs in this world and make a difference, so that those who are being violated, neglected and left behind, have hope.   Humanitarians are people who stand in the face of the world’s wrongs and evils and give a voice to the silent so that they may be heard.

Made in Germany, Monja Wolf spent most of her life working and traveling around the world.  Traveling to more than 40 countries worldwide, Monja has experienced life’s treasures and tragedy.  With all of her experiences and the people she has encountered on her travels; Monja made a conscious decision that she wanted to make a difference in the lives of others and founded “Monyati Initatives”, which is Arabic and translates to “A Little Wish That is Very Close to Your Heart.”

With so many crises in the world “Monyati Initiatives” is dedicated to helping all populations at risk, regardless of cultural and religious background. “Monyati Initiatives”, makes wishes come true where they are most needed.

What exactly inspired the idea of Monyati Initiatives? I knew absolutely at a very young age, that I wanted to work in the non-profit sector and to make a contribution to the world. Every person has their own path to walk and an individual goal to fulfill in life. I know helping people and contributing to the world is my path to walk.

I began at a young age traveling to countries at risk and therefore I have been exposed to different living conditions and cultures in other parts of the world. My first experience was shared with my father and brother. We were traveling often to Thailand and spending a lot of time in boxing camps throughout the world. The people at these camps that my family and I visited used their skills to gain freedom out of poverty. Sometimes boxing was their only tool for survival.

As a young girl, I accompanied my father and brother to rural areas of developing countries and spent months at boxing camps. This is when I became aware of the imbalance in the world. Watching young boys sleeping under the ring, pursuing their only opportunity to get out of the slums (sometimes the entire family depended on the success of these little ones) and yet even if they became successful boxers, these young boys made only pennies from their actual prize-money. Their promoters would make sure that they stayed poor and bound to them, by making them sign “slave-contracts”.

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